The other night we watched the movie “Waiting for Forever” about a boy who had been in love with his childhood girlfriend since they were 10 and officially lost touch when his parents died in a train accident and he and his brother moved to their grandparents. As he grows older, though, he follows the love of his youth wherever her professional career takes her, himself making a living of 3 dollars a day (“on a good day”) as a juggler dressed in pyjamas.
Although this wasn’t the best film I watched of late (for instance, there was the excellent 2010 film “Fair Game,” which gives further insight into the insanity that’s still being perpetrated in Iraq), “Waiting for Forever” moved me most. Not so much because of the plot, but because of the fact that I was watching it with my 28 year old wife who might never get to know the kind of culture that grants a fellow the liberty to make a very unstable living on 3 bucks a day as a juggler, traveling wherever his dream would take him.
Although the boy in the movie was met with heavy criticism from his older brother (a banker), and was being called a stalker, and despite the fact that his kind is a dying breed in the West, at least we have come to know that sort of a culture, while other countries, such as the one I’m currently residing in, probably never will.

Though the culture whose hospitality I’m currently enjoying is by no means an exclusive example of what I’d like to call the “imposed realism” that not only political leaders, but even more so cultural and traditional elders seem to feel obligated to circumcise their offspring’s dreams and ideals with, it is definitely an outstanding example.
You cannot just marry the man or girl you love. Any man that intends to marry is expected to have a house first. My wife has told me of an experience in a Shanghai park where she watched hundreds of elderly couples looking for suitable spouses for their daughters (or sons) with a list of criteria in hand that any potential candidate would have to live up to; criteria primarily based on income.

A juggler making 3 bucks a day wouldn’t stand an chance in hell to get married under that set of conditions. It might me hard in the West, but just about impossible in the East.

Of course, when I was a young lad back in Germany, I got to hear much of the same tune from my folks. Not that they would have expected of me to be able to buy a house before I started messin’ round with the opposite sex, but I was repeatedly advised to “get a good education” to secure a “solid existence” for myself. When I came home one day telling them that I met a group of people who were “foolowing Jesus,” and that one day I would like to do the same, they were naturally horrified.

In the meantime they have accepted my somewhat loose, though not entirely carefree life-style, and my father, having seen his own supposedly “solid existence” and career go down the drain due to fluctuations and instability in the economy has told me since that I made the right choice when I set out to do what I did.
In the West, though, parents have their existence taken care of by retirement insurances, and both my parents are currently better off with their pensions than I am as an English teacher in the Far East, where the only old-age insurance elderly parents have got are their children and their respective incomes, so it’s somewhat understandable that they want their kids to be able to care for them. Many young people live under a lot of pressure because of that responsibility.

Then again, my reasoning is that many things in life are simply beyond our control. Everything is potentially subject to drastic and unexpected changes: death, illness or financial and economic disaster can hit anyone at any time, and what power does anyone really have, to effectively impose their own little reality on anyone in the long run, even their kids?

When Jesus went around luring established young men with flourishing businesses away from their homes and responsibilities telling them He would make them “fishers of men,” certainly He wasn’t met with strong enthusiasm on behalf of those men’s families. For all we know, some of them (like Peter) were even married and possibly had children. What an irresponsible thing to do, to just walk off with a perfect stranger of questionable reputation, Messiah or not…
And from a “realist’s” point of view, that criticism may well be justified: 10 of those young men ended up as martyrs, one committed suicide, and only one died of natural causes on an island where he exiled by the Romans.
Their philosophies and beliefs as expressed in their writings are questionable to this day, and even most “believers” only accept those parts of the Gospels that they can reconcile with the consensus of the imposed realism of our day and age.

The first rule and law is not “to love one another,” but to secure one’s own existence, which, as the Founder of their faith claimed, is no different from what unbelievers adhere to.

So, what would be making a difference then? – Trust.

The people who really made a difference throughout history were those who despite all the seemingly rhymeless reality all around us never ceased to trust that there was Someone ultimately in charge Who not only knew what He was doing, but was also going to take care of them, provide for them, and help them through this mess somehow.

In my own personal experience, I can only confirm that to be true, and I would strive for nothing more than to go down in history as one of those trusters who refuse to accept the artificially imposed realism from those around us – even our loved ones – no matter how justified their reasoning may seem; a person known for the belief that there is a greater Mind than even the wisest of our parents, how ever strange some of the things may first sound that this Great Mind may ask of us – much like a Parent Himself, asking His children to trust Him for the things they do not know, which basically is the essence of faith – the one currency that will outlast any of our existing ones.

In the search of the deeper meaning of everything, I have found that similar to a soccer game, our lives are usually somewhat divided into two half-times:
There is that first, perhaps more energetic, but somewhat less mature half during which we’re prone to act a lot on our impulses and make a bunch of mistakes accordingly, and there’s the latter half, during which we mature into a ripened personality and hopefully have learned some lessons from the former and tend to do things differently than we used to.
Oddly enough, the same principle seems to apply to God’s church, body, or, as it has also been referred to, His bride. There’s an Old Testament way during which God’s people tended to call down fire and brimstone upon their opponents, sometimes drowning them in a universal flood and at others devouring them with fire, and then there’s the New Testament approach of love.

Sometimes you can tell that a movement really is anointed by God when it shows those same signs of maturation.

While folks are often criticized for their opinions, it is usually so, that those opinions are really only the result of the input those folks have been fed. Once the opinions of the folks at grassroots level become too embarrassing for their leaders to want to be associated with them, some serious brainstorming takes place (in movements that are alive and flexible enough to do so, that is), about how best to avoid unwanted politically incorrect attitudes spread from among the followers.

Thus it can happen, that a once “radical,” “white-hot,” “revolutionary” and somewhat militant movement can mature into a wiser, more diplomatic one, just as it can happen that a once young and perhaps slightly overly zealous hot-head can finally come to his senses and calm down a wee bit and realize that it might be better to just live and let live instead of being a constant prick in everyone’s side.
Of course, it helps if the leadership makes the first step and adjusts its own approach first and makes it clear that, “That is the way we used to do things, and this is the way we do them now.”

Well, after one half-hearted attempt earlier this year to roll a new, more politically correct leaf over that sort of petered out, I’m happy to announce that I hereby officially will bury all my differences of opinion I may have had with my fellow believers around the world, and I shall carefully try not to utter any more criticisms of any of them any longer.

In any case, you won’t hear anymore rants about “lukewarmness,” “half-heartedness” or proneness to materialism or any other sicknesses of society on this blog, nor any other judgmental statements that might only create further barriers between parties, instead of eradicating them.

Sometimes God gives us more relevant things to worry about than trying to figure out how we can take on and challenge the whole world at once.

It’s not as if the entire experience would have been useless. After all, we still do read the Old Testament. But the New One is a whole lot more relevant, and when it’s time for a change and a new direction, it’s just simply that. Sometimes it takes half a life-time to get there. Sometimes more.

Through a close friend, I’ve recently been allowed a glimpse into world of the Anonymous Recovery Groups, and while it is one of these groups’ principles not to rely on advertisement to flourish, I would like to share some thoughts and lessons I’ve gleaned from my acquaintance with them, and from my many discussions with my friend about them.

As Christians, it has been drilled into us that it is expedient to do whatever we do in the name of Christ, and it is my belief that salvation from our sins and death is found in no other, as the Bible states.
Yet here is a program that seems to be accomplishing a world of good, yet without calling it “Christian” or associating it with Jesus, even accomplishing the salvation of tens of thousands from physical addictions, but also what one might call spiritual problems, even if this may be a slightly different matter than the spiritual Salvation the Bible refers to.

The honesty, openness and depth of conversation within these groups is something I don’t think I’ve ever experienced in a church or even during Home gatherings, meetings or in Bible groups. After all, Christians are usually people who have their act somewhat together, at least more, on a general scale, than those that attend Anonymous groups. Having a common problem that provides a common basis for Anonymous group members to come together presents – from my point of view – an advantage that many churches and Christian movements don’t: the humility, the readiness to open themselves concerning a weakness, thus ready to attack sin head on in a way one will hardly ever find in a church where people often play a masquerade for years, one hardly ever gets to know their brethren on a truly personal level, and all that connects one another is the fact that they just listened to the same sermon, sang a few of the same songs, etc.

The question I’ve had to ask myself as a Christian was, is it possible that God instigates movements on earth that may not be able to be defined clearly as Christian? Apparently, yes. Is it possible that these non-Christian movements can sometimes bring forth more and somewhat even perhaps better fruit than some obvious Christian movement or church? Apparently, yes.
It reminded me of the passage in which Jesus talks about those who prophesied in His name, cast out devils in His name, etc., (and mind you, one has to be a Spirit-filled and born again Christian, in order to cast out devils!), and yet telling them, “I never knew you.” Yet in another passage welcoming those who all they ever did was visit the prisoners, care for the sick, feed the hungry, no matter in whose name.
Apparently Jesus does not mind whether what we do we do in His name as much as whether what we do is the right thing to do.
Obviously, a lot of wrongs have already been committed in His name, as it is. Apparently God is more concerned about genuinely helping people than He is about the advertisement, and whether it was done on His behalf or not.

Imagine you were God and had to watch how people slaughtered each other by the millions for millennia on His behalf… Wouldn’t you be glad if someone eventually came around who gave you a break and just did something good, no matter in whose name, or in no one’s name in particular?

Yes, the name of Jesus is important and powerful, and it is our duty to spread the good news that He indeed saves. But apparently there is something even more important in God’s eyes than what we say and preach, and that is what we do.
God seems to avail Himself of any program that works, and the 12-Steps programs have proven to work in millions of changed lives around the world, and God doesn’t seem to care much whether this has been accomplished under the flag of Christianity.
If a program works, you’ll use it. You install it, run it and enjoy the benefits. Totally regardless of whatever it says on the package, or what brand name it is.

One would have to ask themselves to what extent Christ Himself would consider Himself a Christian, if He were to walk among us today. Maybe in the light of all that’s being said and done in His name, He might even prefer to remain anonymous.

Reason: It is against Huffington Post policy to publish “conspiracy theories.”

The question I have is, if everybody is only supposed to parrot the official fairy-tale, then why bother to pretend to be any sort of alternative news source at all?

Ventura wasn’t just warming up old theories, but reporting of the latest developments in the 9/11 truth movement, and the Huffington Post reaction is a classical example and proof that this whole issue is anything but over yet.

Come on: everybody is going hyper as soon as the slightest “evidence” comes out that might indicate that Jesus of Nazareth, also known as the Christ may not have been crucified, but buried with his wife and uncles in Jerusalem, or that He fathered dozens of kiddies instead…

If everybody is so gung ho to find out what exactly happened nearly 2000 years ago (since they obviously don’t want to believe the “official” report on those incidents), then how come nobody could care less about the real backgrounds of the greatest crime in modern history that took place not even 10 years ago?

It just shows that the one thing people like Arianna Huffington couldn’t care less about is the truth, unfortunately reflecting the vast majority of her cowardly colleagues of the international press.
The sad and deceptive thing about it is that these people pretend to be sources of new information and “uncovering” what’s going on in the world, when nothing could be further from the truth.

They don’t mind publishing “conspiracy theories” (formerly known as “inside information”) about the “War on Drugs” (the forerunner of the current episode of the War-On Morons, the “War on Terror”), or about who shot Kennedy, but to deny the official fairy-tale that would take away any and all justification for the genocide in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and to some extent, Palestine, puts you into the same league as “Holocaust Deniers.”

It’s okay for over a thousand architects and engineers to risk their reputation by demanding a new investigation of 9/11, but obviously newspaper editors fall into a much higher and nobler category of folks (at least in their own opinion).
Personally, it only confirms my own experiences of 3 1/2 decades with the press, and the reason why I don’t have any respect for those people anymore at all.
It’s just good to know that the Huffington Post can be taken off my list of potentially alternative news sources.

Who needs another episode of “Howling with the wolves?” – Not me!

If you want to sell me something you dare call news, then you’d better give me something better than that average run-off-the-mill hogwash that thousands of journalists around the globe sold their soul for, in exchange for the cheap mess of pottage of seeing their name under some article that says everything they’re ever allowed to say in our Orwellian 21st century: absolutely nothing.

It’s better not having learned to read at all than to have to wade through such lukewarm hogwash.

I’ve recently tried to tackle the problem of workaholism, but I’m afraid there are a few more aspects to the issue that I would like to expound on.

When I’m talking about the “problem” of workaholism, I am, of course, referring to the issue from what I would consider to be a Christian aspect, referring thus to Christians, since it’s obvious that the majority of the world’s population would not consider the issue a problem at all: Their work is what they live for; it is, essentially, their life.
Especially men are notorious for defining their worth, in fact, themselves, by numbers: the numbers on their bank account, the number of cubic centimeters of oil their car’s motor holds, or even more seemingly trivial numbers, such as the inches that constitute the size of certain body parts…
If anything threatens to diminish those numbers, their lives are sometimes drastically reduced to nothing (they feel), and – as the recent movie “Up In the Air” with George Clooney showed – some people consider their lives as good as over when the worst conceivable thing happens to them and they lose their jobs.

But what about the Christian aspect on these things? Christian, as in, more than one hour a week Christianity? What did or would Jesus (= Jesus Christ: founder of Christianity) have to say about it?

First of all, the word “workaholism” implies that we’re dealing with some form of addiction here. As a Christian, you would certainly consider alcoholism a problem. – Or any addiction to any intoxicating substance, for that matter. Workaholism, on the other hand, probably the biggest addiction of the last century, has a much more politically correct slant to it in that it brings a family the sort of things modern families have learned not to live without: all those gimmicks advertised to us just about non-stop everywhere, on the tube, the internet, on billboards… you name it.
We figure, work equals money, and money equals our wives’ and children’s happiness and security.

I’m going to be honest with you and admit that probably the reason why I’m in any position at all to write as weird a blog as this one is largely due to the fact that I have a partner whose happiness luckily is generally not defined by any of the numbers mentioned above that usually define a man’s self-worth. – In addition to the fact that I happen to belong to the group of personality types which simply lack the energy for the game of numbers by which we impress our fellow humans, especially those of the other sex.

So, let’s have a look at what we could safely assume would be Jesus’ position on workaholism.
Was He into our macho game of “I’ll impress you by my capabilities as a solid provider for my family,” etc.?

First of all, we can assume that if He would have considered a man’s highest duty to pursue his job until His dying day, He would have saved Himself a lot of trouble by sticking to carpentry, instead of persuading at least 12 male members of the working force that we know of to abandon their careers (and families) in order to join Him on what might be considered some rather vague and hazy ambition of… errr… saving the world from its erroneous ways. – And which erroneous ways, exactly? Could they possibly have been exactly what we are talking about? – The Matrix? – The Machine?

We already covered a few things Jesus said that didn’t exactly coincide with the universal message of “Get a Job!”, like the stuff that most working folks hate so much about Him: you know, the lilies of the field talk, and that outrageous statement of not being able to serve God and Mammon simultaneously, in Matthew 6.
That was bad enough.
Then there was, “Labour not for the meat that perisheth.” In English, this would mean: Don’t work for food that rots away. He said to work for a different sort of food. The type that would last forever. Of course, He was talking about the distribution of His teachings in a sense, but some folks have gone and made a whole industry out of that, too.
And with all the “spiritual food industry” has to offer, does it effectively equip folks with a living relationship with God, an established means of communication with Him that’s also going to spill over on others? – Not in the case of most Christians I know.

People are always quick to pull out the few verses that justify what they’re doing, such as the few that seem to advocate the pursuit of their jobs: “He that shall not work shall not eat,” and of course, their all-time favorite, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,” which is what the Lord told Adam as a result of the curse he had brought upon us all by his disobedience, that we still seem to be haunted by… Unless we don’t have a reason to doubt our Salvation, the one reason why Jesus came to redeem us in the first place: the process that would (and should) reverse and annul the result of the curse in our lives.
But again, the reason most folks are insecure about their Salvation is because they are not familiar enough with the Word of God which repeatedly assures them of it (if they believe in Jesus), and the reason they are not familiar with it, is that they are too busy chasing after money. Instead of spending the time to find out how much God really loves them, they settle for the industrial, fast-food version of spirituality: “Come back next Sunday for your next fix!”

Unfortunately, the way the Christian establishment works nowadays is that they encourage their flock to keep doing things exactly this way, since they need their members’ money in order to feed the machine they have created, which has often become just another branch of the giant Matrix of Mammon.

Let’s be honest: The place of importance of the two commandments Jesus said were the top two, and basically the essence of them all (namely, to love God and others) has been replaced in the lives of most of us by the great commandment of Mammon: “Thou shalt earn money!”

And, since we are all so much into numbers, let’s prove it: How many hours a week do we spend loving God and our fellowmen, compared to the amount of hours we spend labouring for the meat that perisheth? Honestly? If we work 5 times 8 hours a week, how much time and energy do we have left for the two great commandments? It would probably be a generous estimate to say that most of us might be able to eke out perhaps an hour a day for God, and maybe 1 to 3 hours for our families and friends? That adds up to half of what we dedicate to our work. In other words, we are twice as obedient to the great commandment of Mammon than we are to the commandments of God. Of course, you won’t hear anybody in the churches preach that…
And we all know that the above was a generous estimate. The people I’m really talking about usually work 10 to 12 hours a day, and spend maybe two or three hours maximally on their faith and with their families, and much of that is due to the fact that they still have to eat sometime.

So, what would Jesus say about our modern System and the way most of us practice our religion nowadays? Of course, we’re hoping He would understand. “You know, Lord: everybody does it that way! You can’t just stop working! We can’t just all start following You and preaching the Gospel, the way You and Your disciples did…”

No, of course not.

But maybe – just maybe – He might remind us of what the priorities are, according to His rules, and that by and large, we’re failing to live up to that. Perhaps He might also prompt us to try to find a solution and a slightly better balance in our lives between our jobs and that which He obviously considers more important. And perhaps we’d find out that less is sometimes more: Less money does not always necessarily equal a lesser quality of life, but – if you’re out for the Real Thing, at all – you might find out, as I have, less money might actually help you appreciate more what you’ve already got and inspire you to spend more time appreciating it, including our awesome God and the folks He has given us to tug along on our journey through life.
Because, at the end of the day, all those numbers, completely regardless of their sum and the amount of their digits, you can’t take them with you when it’s over.

“Well, but what if everybody would start working less? – The System would collapse! The Chinese would take over!!!… The end of the world….” – I already hear them protest in my mind. Well, just for your information: the System is already collapsing anyway, and it’s going to collapse sooner or later regardless of any of your doings. Paper money is going to be history before long, and it’s not because you decided to work only 6 or 7, instead of 10 or 12 hours.
The end of the world as we know it is going to come one way or the other, and whether it’s only going to constitute a new and better beginning for you or a dreadful plunge into icy water will largely depend on the amount of time you’re willing to invest today in the things that last, instead of merely the meat that perisheth…

I guess, in the end, it all depends on where our faith, our hearts (and our treasure) really are: whether in this world with all the things that money can buy, all the security it promises and the self-esteem it gives us, or in the One Who called His out of this world, because they simply were not really part of it…

I think it’s about time for a post about the “God Journey,” in my opinion one of the hottest moves of God on earth right now.
The way we got wind of it was in such a way that you just know that it couldn’t possibly have been coincidence.
Geographically speaking, we’re pretty much situated right in the middle of the boonies. And the chances that some American speaker on spirituality should seriously arouse our interest and at the same time visit our neighborhood aren’t exactly high.

Yet about 2 years ago, some very close Christian friends of ours invited us to tug along to hear somebody named Wayne Jacobsen speak, whom we had never heard of, but who was supposed to have written a book that was going quite well.
I couldn’t go, but my better half did, and when she came back, she was pleasantly surprised about the fact that this guy (Wayne) had actually been talking about getting out of the churches.

Curious, we checked out his website, downloaded his book and you can find the download link to that book – one of the best I ever read – in the sidebar of this blog ever since.

Every now and then I check out TheGodJourney.com, a website on which Wayne Jacobsen presents regular podcasts along with his friend Brad Cummings, and I listen to some of their stuff, and every time I go, “awesome!”

Last week I listened to their podcast entitled, “It’s About Jesus” and once again, I thought “awesome!” and I felt more inspired about what I had just heard than I had been for a while, so I decided to listen to some more. In fact, I started downloading the whole caboodle of podcasts and to listen to them from the beginning.

It’s not that I was looking for any new source of spirituality of soul food, but I felt as if God was drawing me toward this.
Strangely enough, He had been doing similar things in my life previously and drawing my attention toward comparatively awkward sources of inspiration, such as the Franciscan writer Richard Rohr (Can anything good come out of the Catholic church?), or, as I mentioned recently, Malcolm Muggeridge, among others.

The neat thing is when you find truths that God has shown you confirmed by different sources: brothers and sisters around the world; and you find that He’s doing and showing the very same things in the lives of others that He’s doing in your own.
And one of the truths I find reflected in Wayne and Brad’s talks, for instance, is that it is Jesus building His church, His Ecclesia, His living body of called-out ones from among all sorts of different areas and walks of life, and not we ourselves. In other words, God’s part of the action is not only far greater than what we sometimes give Him credit for, or than what some people would grant Him the permission for, not only greater than anything we could ever possibly imagine, but it is, in fact, lo and behold, also greater than the supposedly so important part that we are doing.

And that may come as quite a shock to some of us who perceive themselves as the greater doers.

It’s an old truth that in theory I’ve grown up with: “Let go and let God;” but which has taken me decades to actually start putting into practice.

Some of the stuff they’re saying I’ve been taught for decades. But I guess it’s one of the jobs of the Holy Spirit to bring “all these things to our remembrance” even if it is via unexpected sources sometimes…

You’ll find a lot of similarities between some of the thoughts expressed in this blog over the years, and those shared on the God Journey, like the idea of taking God out of the box we sometimes like to stick Him in: our church, our group, our self-made confines for Him and His capabilities that we make up in our own minds… As long as we think our box is IT, we actually fail to see Him, and we forget that all we really are is little diamonds of dust, and that He is the light that makes us shine.

How long has it been since you’ve seen sunshine in your brother’s eyes?

Well, I’m afraid the only way we’re going to get back that shine is by focusing on the light, not by feverishly trying to shine in our own strength.

For passing on a bit of their shine and light of the experience of what they’ve learned in their own lives and on their jorney with God, I would like to thank Wayne and Brad…

At least it seems to me that I’m finding more that I can wholeheartedly agree with among the writings of the deceased than among the ceaseless, ever more superficial and pseudo-intelligent babble of the large bulk of my contemporaries.

But then it’s hard to come across minds even remotely comparable to some of those who dared to make a difference in the decades and centuries gone by – minds like that of Malcolm Muggeridge, whom I only recently discovered and find out I’m having more in common with than most of my living acquaintances.

I doubt, for instance, if I would find among the living anyone able to put into words as appropriately and eloquently my very own opinion on the topic of education as he did in his book “Jesus Rediscovered:”

“Education, the great mumbo-jumbo and fraud of the age, purports to equip us to live, and is prescribed as a universal remedy for everything, from juvenile delinquency to premature senility. For the most part, it only serves to enlarge stupidity, inflate conceit, enhance credulity and put those subjected to it, at the mercy of brain-washers with printing presses, radio and television at their disposal.”

“The most powerful instrument of all in bringing about the erosion of our civilization was none other than the public education system set up with such high hopes and at so great expense precisely to sustain it.”

— Or on the topic of science:

“We are perfectly capable of believing other things intrinsically as improbable as Christ’s incarnation. Towards any kind of scientific mumbojumbo we display a credulity which must be the envy of African witch-doctors. While we shy away with contumely from the account of the creation in the Book of Genesis, we are probably ready to assent to any rigmarole by a Professor Hoyle about how matter came to be, provided it is dished up in the requisite jargon and associated, however obliquely, with what we conceive to be ‘facts’.

I suppose every age has its own particular fantasy. Ours is science. A seventeenth-century man like Pascal, though himself a mathematician and scientist of genius, found it quite ridiculous that anyone should suppose that rational processes could lead to any ultimate conclusions about life, but easily accepted the authority of the Scriptures. With us it is the other way round.”

“Professing Christians and ostensibly Christian societies and institutions have by no means been true to the cross and what it signified, especially today when the nominally Christian part of the world is foremost in worship of the Gross National Product—our Golden Calf—and in pursuit of happiness in the guise of sensual pleasure. Yet there the cross still is, propounding its unmistakable denunciation of this world and of the things of this world.”

The way I came across my new heavenly friend was by means of one of his quotes on evolution, to which, of course, I also couldn’t agree more:

“I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it’s been applied, will be one of the great jokes in the history books in the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has. I think I spoke to you before about this age as one of the most credulous in history, and I would include evolution as an example.”

Since there are such wonderful aspects awaiting someone like me in the afterlife, of finally actually meeting folks on the same weird wavelength as mine, I can only agree with his following statement as well:

“As I do not believe that earthly life can bring any lasting satisfaction, the prospect of

death holds no terrors.“

To round off this train of thoughts, I’ll end this with a quote from wee little me:

When even that which is considered the worst that can possibly happen to a person – death – turns out to actually be the best that can possibly happen, then what is there to fear? What is there to lose?(April 20, 2008)

—

“That through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Hebrews 2:14, 15).